Which Knowledge and Skills Do Participants Retain after Attending Medical Education Training Workshops?

Abstract

The Aga Khan University (AKU) renewed its undergraduate curriculum and incorporated Problem Based Learning (PBL) as one of the main teaching strategies in years one and two. PBL requires a huge pool of facilitators. Recent AKU graduates were recruited as Teaching Assistants (TAs) to support teaching. A faculty development program was conducted to prepare TAs for their teaching role. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a faculty development program (conducted in two parts) in increasing knowledge, skills and teaching performance of the participants and assess the long term retention of knowledge by participants. A longitudinal, mixed method, evaluation study was conducted at Aga Khan University from 2006-2008. The participants included all eleven TAs recruited by AKU. Workshop evaluation forms, pre, post and delayed post test and student evaluations of TAs teaching performance were used to gather data. Evaluation of the PBL workshop was much better than the one on broader aspects of medical education since the PBL workshop was in line with the participants’ goals. TAs reported perceived improvement in PBL facilitation skills. Student evaluations of TAs facilitation skills validated this perception. The workshop helped improve knowledge (p = 0.036), which increased on immediate post-test but decayed at the end of year on delayed post-test. Short training programs lead to increase in knowledge, skills and improved teaching performance. The participants retain knowledge and skills which are applied while those that are not applied regularly decay over time. Regular, periodic refreshers should be instituted to reinforce and retain knowledge and skills.